Ofsted outstanding - approx 300 schools not visited in a decade

Like that school in Bath that was covering up racist incidents.

Sorry, yes Sansa - clearly we are violently agreeing!

@cantkeepawayforever I think you've misinterpreted the tone of my post- I agree outstanding schools should be reinspected and under the same level of scrutiny as other schools! I was talking about how a school could develop problems and no longer be outstanding, without there being a real dip/impact on results.

Whilst results and teaching and learning are very important, they are not the only thing that matters in a school.

Exactly, but Ofsted are making a decision whether or not to inspect historically outstanding schools on the basis of their results - and this (except in the case of someone submitting a qualifying complaint) removes the opportunity for teaching and learning, off rolling and behaviour to be scrutinised by inspectors.#

Ofsted inspections are not perfect - but they are a better level of scrutiny than no inspection.....

Even at secondary, results staying good can be down to invested parents and parents who will buy in tutoring if necessary. Having a proportion of kids being tutored gives the school a bit of a buffer in terms of results and progress 8.

Equally, a school can get good results and still have major issues - such as off rolling or sweeping issues like drug use under the carpet rather than dealing with them properly or having a serious bullying problem. Whilst results and teaching and learning are very important, they are not the only thing that matters in a school.

Where I live, verbal reasoning and non verbal reasoning are part of the 11 plus. Children might be tutored in these. They are not Sats papers so there is no impact. 11 plus doesn’t necessarily mimic the curriculum. Also our grammar schools are full of high achievers. Some secondary moderns have 30% high achievers too. I don’t believe these DC have all been tutored. In fact I know they haven’t! Some parents are relaxed about it or cannot afford it.

Good schools in good areas tend to remain good.

Newly good schools in more challenging areas tend to be the work of one or two inspirational people, with cash behind them. Once they move on and up,the schools stand a real risk of dropping back.

This is why OFSTED, cashed strapped as they are, tend to focus on more struggling schools. Poor OFTEDS can equal cash.

Parents who do the research, pay the house price premium, comb the results stats, talk to the local primary heads, know the parents of kids currently at the school, see those kids walking home every evening, attend several prospective pupils open events, question the kids we meet, see the local news reports about what kids are getting up to at the school, OR have happy children at the school, performing at least to their innate ability, if not beyond....tend not to need yearly OFSTEDS to assess the school.

Also, if I'm honest, we're not stupid. Many of us have seen remarkably average 'local' schools getting 'great' OFSTEDs - where the parents of pupils actually attending go 'Outstanding? Rilly?'

OFSTED has its place, but it's been ridiculously politicised.

We were also in that first wave of stand alone academies and still got hit within 18 months. Maybe we got really unlucky.

It goes to show you never know.

It's still concerning though that post conversion decent (or assumed to be decent) schools could join a MAT, have whole leadership change and not be seen for years post conversion. Much as all MATs aren't equal, some of these large ones can really change a school for better and worse.

We didn't join a MAT though Lola. We were in the first wave which noble mentions : the outstanding schools encouraged to convert, back in the days when to become an academy you had to be at least good!

Maybe it should be a sliding scale -

Inadequate - 6 months
Requires Improvement - 1 year
Good - 3 years
Outstanding - 5 years

Then caveats such as

Two Headteacher resignations within 2 years - within 3 months
Turnover generally passes 30% - within 6 months
Overall grades drop X% - within 1 year

They wanted outstanding schools to convert to academies so it wouldn’t make sense to say ‘if you convert to an academy you’re back in the inspection cycle’ surely?

My school was outstanding and was only re-inspected post academy conversion because it was outstanding under the old regime were you could be outstanding without T&L being outstanding.

Wow piggy.
The last academy converter I worked in, we had the call within 18 months perfectly within schedule for converter academies.

That's quite concerning when some of these conversions involve swapping entire leadership levels to large MAT approved people. In some schools the change is substantial, both good and bad

I'm looking forward to see what is said about a local school. Nearly 10 years ago said school "needed" outstanding in order to do a specific thing. Specific thing was discovered (under freedom of information act) to have been discussed for a few years between the head and the LA, with head putting pressure on the LA to sort it.

When it was announced they were going to do this (to general unhappiness) they also said they could only do it if they got outstanding at the next Ofsted. Amazingly Ofsted just happened to turn up within weeks and give them one. I know several teachers there who said that there was absolutely no way that was deserved and felt issues that had been seen/raised had been ignored by the inspectors.

I watch with interest. I think this could be entertaining.

My daughters school was last inspected I. 2008!! It converted to an academy in 2012, has had a complete change of SLT inc Head and has changed the school day and the way they set classes. Still hadn’t been inspected!!! There is no way it will retain its outstanding when it does get done. It’s not a great school at all!!

Lola , my school was inspected in 2008. Became an academy in about 2011. Not inspected until 2018.

Sats data isn’t the only data. Also it’s unlikely every child is tutored. Some won’t be grammar bound or even dreaming of it.

IIRC the results that Ofsted look at when deciding whether to inspect a school are those at the key checkpoints, such as SATs, rather than e.g. data for intermediate years.

And what level of tutoring would you regard as 'too insignificant to affect the results, when compared with a school where, because of its 'non black hole' location, very very few take the 11+'? While I agree with you that 100% tutoring is unlikely, I think it would be reasonable to say that even, say 30% would be sufficient to make a school's results not necessarily a true reflection of the school's own teaching, if that makes sense?

So if the data says 'In school A, previous high attainers make very good progress' BUT tutoring is very common for this subgroup, how can this school be compared with School B, where the same group make slightly lower progress but there is no tutoring so the school teaching is responsible for the progress?

They must be due an inspection soon, overdue even.
Even outstanding schools aren't exempt when they convert to academy status. They have a short window to get settled and re-established (mainly I think for those schools who join large MATs or smaller ones, stand alone academies just had a breathing space) and then they are inspected as they are technically a new school and the old outstanding school no longer exists.

Our local primary converted to academy status quite a few years back, once outstanding...now most certainly not. My eldest passed through it’s slightly better years, but they were even dipping then. No inspection in at least 10 years. Having said that, the savvier parents know better...and my once lucrative spot in terms of close proximity to the school, has taken a considerable nose dive in response.

Interesting quote from Sam Freedman

Nonetheless, he said the process was logically flawed. “If exam results were everything, you wouldn’t need inspections at all,” he said.

BubblesBuddy
I know that's what I mean.

One gets good progress 8, but lower than the other. They have students who have to get 8s in every subject to come out at a p8 of 0 (and don't get me started on how GCSE and BTEC progress can be assessed from KS2 English and maths). The one with better p8 has average KS2 entry but when you look closely it's entirely propped up by limiting ebacc and bulking up the open bucket
Progress looks better at one school, but the educational provision in the other is better.

A school's reputation often is more telling than its Ofsted report and p8 score.

Sats data isn’t the only data. Also it’s unlikely every child is tutored. Some won’t be grammar bound or even dreaming of it.

Lola: Results are not everything if progress is excellent. It depends on the starting points of the DC. It could still be a school doing an outstanding job if results are not stellar. Even if it’s good, that’s fine!

Local primary hasn't been inspected since 2008. SATs results heavily supported by a universal culture of 11+ tutoring (in a 'black hole' wrt the very good local non-grammars). So there is no information at all that parents can rely on when judging the school's current teaching.

That teaching MAY be excellent, but an 11 year old Ofsted report and misleading SATs data can provide no data whatever on that point.

Outstanding schools in our region still have different reputations. Take these two examples:

One is in demand more because other options aren't great if you live close by, but anyone with any knowledge of education knows their outcomes got them outstanding under the old framework but they've narrowed the curriculum, have staff teaching out of specialism, have fewer GCSE options, 3 year KS4. I'd not send my child there. They conveniently manage to lose some students before GCSEs and whilst I wouldn't say they're not inclusive, they make no attempt to encourage neurodiverse children to attend.

The other hasn't been inspected in a while (nowhere close to a decade though). The results on paper don't appear as good as the first school but it's always kept to its purpose of being a well-rounded and inclusive school. They support children of all abilities and offer lots of enrichment and trips and clubs. I'd love to have my children in that school.

House prices near the two schools are very different. Parents who take the time and effort to consider schools when moving house aren't silly enough to think those two schools are equal.